Chi­nese char­i­ta­ble dona­tions go over­seas

Over­seas char­ity or­ga­ni­za­tions have be­come the main re­cip­i­ents of dona­tions — in cash and shares — from Chi­nese in­di­vid­u­als, ac­cord­ing to a study.

The study by the China Phi­lan­thropy Re­search In­sti­tute at Bei­jing Nor­mal Uni­ver­sity says that over­seas char­i­ties re­ceived more than 24.4 bil­lion yuan ($3.9 bil­lion) in dona­tions last year, ac­count­ing for 80 per­cent of to­tal en­dow­ments from Chi­nese in­di­vid­u­als.

Zhang Gaorong, as­sis­tant to the dean and re­search direc­tor at the in­sti­tute, said the rea­son is likely to be that donors can avoid pay­ing higher amounts of tax com­pared to giv­ing in China.

The re­port re­vealed what it con­sid­ers the top 100 main­land-based in­di­vid­u­als who made the big­gest dona­tions last year. Jack Ma, Alibaba Group Hold­ing Ltd's chair­man, topped the list with 16.9 bil­lion yuan worth of Alibaba shares.